Lethe
by fiesa
Summary: How do you stop being everything you are? Simple: You don't. Drabble- Luke.


**Lethe**

_Summary: How do you stop being everything you are? Simple: You don't. Drabble- Luke._

_Warning: Angst._

_Set: Somewhere along City of Bones/City of Ashes._

_Disclaimer: Standards apply._

* * *

Once upon a time Lucian Graymark was Nephilim.

Maybe he wasn't very good at being one, in the beginning, but it didn't change the fact that he _was. _There was only so much a person could deny in oneself and he always knew – without a sliver of doubt – that it was the truth. Unshakable, undeniable: He'd been born Nephilim, he'd die Nephilim. Running away would not help anything. _(Sometimes it seemed like an option. But only until he turned to the window and saw the sky above Idris, and then he knew there was no place he could go that would make him forget what he was.) _It might not be in his blood to be a good Shadowhunter, but it was his blood that screamed that he _was one_.

* * *

Jocelyn is beautiful. He can stare at her for hours and still wouldn't tire, it is a habit he has taken up somewhere along the way and he takes care that she does not notice. Not ever. Jocelyn is Valentine's, promised, loved, and Lucian would rather die than hurt his best friend and his parabatai. _(The tiny voice that screams he knew her first is buried deep, deep in his heart and he prays it will stay there.)_ She smiles at the wedding, blindingly, happy, and he feels so sick he actually leaves earlier, as soon as he can extract himself from the bride's parents. He almost, _almost_ runs on that night but the duty and love that connect him to Valentine and the love he feels for Jocelyn win, and he just goes and gets so senselessly drunk that he almost forgets his name. _Almost. _In the midst of darkness, though, he can still hear her voice. He still heard her voice when he confronted his parabatai: _What are you doing, Valentine? She's scared for you, don't hurt her like that, please - _he does not add _I cannot stand to see her hurt_ because something inside him flinched at the thought. _She's not yours. _But she'd looked so small and scared, so unlike the tough, strong Jocelyn he knew-

* * *

One day Valentine and Lucian go hunting, a Wolves' nest, a routine hunt, and when Lucian turns around Valentine isn't there.

* * *

_(Fact: So now he has become what he always hated and he cannot even get himself killed when he tries. He can't touch Angel Blades anymore, or draw runes, or invoke the Angel's name. He finds new people, instead, but they live by a different codex and a different dream. His pack urges him to stay and become one of them. His blood screams it isn't possible because he is Nephilim. But his mind tells him he is a lycanthrope, now. Still, for a while, it is enough. Jocelyn hates him, anyway.)_

* * *

How do you give up everything you are? Easy. You don't.

* * *

You_ can't._

Jocelyn still is beautiful even in the white, sterile hospital sheets, and Clary looks so much like her mother, and Jonathan's – Jace's – eyes are so full of desperation. And Lucian is Luke, but both are torn, both are shattered, how is it supposed to work? He has no place to go – his home is terrifyingly still in the bed in front of him – he has every reason to fight and no way to justify it and if an angel, any angel, is listening, why can't they come and tell him what to do? Wolves don't run with Nephilim, their kinds don't mix, but Luke is Lucian and Lucian is a Shadowhunter. And Lucian still calls out for Jocelyn, which is why Luke fell in love with her. And Valentine is back – God, what an awful mess – and what can he do, mere man and not even that that he is.

He is so terribly, terribly tired.

* * *

_(There is a paradox hidden among the mess of it all. The mess that consists of lies and tales, and, most of all, of pain. Because Valentine's doings go beyond what is visible on the surface, drop down to the deepest levels of what mankind is able to feel. Because, in a way, Lucian is a product of Valentine's doings, Valentine's faith, Valentine's beliefs, Valentine made him what he was and it is part of what he is and always will be. Valentine, too, shaped Jocelyn, the strong, proud Shadowhunter Luke fell in love with and will love forever. She never was afraid before. Complete the tangled web of lies, love and hate: Jocelyn shaped Lucian.)_

* * *

A parabatai bond is sacred. Nephilim say that it may vary in strength, if so, Lucian and Valentine have a strong bond, but who is he to compare. What does he know. Luke knows he knows when Valentine is in danger, he knows where to find his parabatai when nobody else (except for Jocelyn, perhaps) knows, he knows when Valentine is far away and when he's close. Valentine could have chosen anyone: Patrick Penhallow, Robert Lightwood, Aidan Blackwell, Simon Pangborn, even Hodge Starkweather. Valentine Morgenstern, traitor named after the angel that betrayed heaven, choses Lucian Graymark: short, careful, shortsighted. A weak Nephilim, a bad Shadowhunter - he takes him, and he trains him, and there is no greater honor to Luke than being recognized by Valentine in that way.

The bond breaks: Lucian cuts it the night the Downworlders stream into the Hall of Accords where the Uprising is starting, he cuts it with the kindjal Valentine gave him, and when he does Valentine does not even flinch.

Nights and nights later he still agonized over it: it was the ultimate proof that Valentine had never felt their parabatai bond the way Lucian had, or, if he ever had, he had not felt it for a long time anymore. Because the severance of their sacred promise close to killed Luke while Valentine laughed maniacally and fled, went to burn innocent people and break Jocelyn's heart all over again, and if Lucian ever had thought he meant something to his parabatai he was corrected then. Strange how illusions one never thought one still had had a way of pressing themselves against the glass of one's heart, almost forgotten and yet so close, until the glass shattered and one was left with nothing but pain.

* * *

Paradox: Luke hates Valentine, but he loves Jocelyn.

* * *

Jocelyn does not move in her bed and her hand is cool and life-less. Luke takes it into his again, carefully, he wonders briefly what she would say if she woke and found him like that. Probably nothing. Whatever. Where is the line? He can't see it anymore. He doesn't even know what he is – who he is – what he is supposed to be, what he is supposed to do. He's not a Nephilim. Their wars don't concern him anymore. He's not a full lycanthrope, either. He's stuck somewhere in between, like limbo: no back and no forward. He can still love, unconditionally, even, Clary has shown him that, but Jocelyn is the one he still longs for no matter how hard he tries to hate her. On some days, he does hate her. Everything he is he is due to Valentine and to her and none of them stayed long enough to realize what power man has over his fellow men, what power a person who holds one's heart in her hand can have.

He wonders if it is true, the story she told him when they were children, awake at night underneath a sky full of stars: there is a river somewhere whose water makes you forget everything you are, everything you ever were, everything you love and long for.

Every story has a true origin.

* * *

_(Lucian wonders if he'd be able to.)_


End file.
